The invention relates to improvements in means for temporarily confining or storing and transporting receptacles of the type known as trays and used extensively in the tobacco processing industry for temporary storage of piles of plain or filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, cheroots, filter rod sections and/or other rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry.
Trays for confinement of piles of parallel rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry are utilized in production lines wherein the articles are turned out by one or more makers and are to be transported to one or more processing machines. Typical examples of such production lines are those including one or more makers of plain or filter cigarettes and one or more packing machines. Let it be assumed that a single maker of filter cigarettes (the so-called filter tipping machine) is directly coupled to a single processing machine, e.g., a packing machine for filter cigarettes. As a rule, the filter cigarettes issuing from the tipping machine are caused to form a mass flow of parallel articles which move transversely of their longitudinal axes toward and into the magazine of the packing machine. Such mode of transporting articles between the tipping machine and the packing machine is highly satisfactory as long as the output of the tipping machine matches the requirements of the packing machine. Trays are put to use when the output of the tipping machine exceeds the momentary requirements of the packing machine or vice versa. Thus, the surplus of articles issuing from the tipping machine is stored in trays by a so-called tray filling apparatus, and the contents of filled trays are removed therefrom by so-called evacuating apparatus for introduction of the removed articles into the packing machine or into the path leading to the packing machine when the output of the tipping machine cannot match the momentary requirements of the packing machine. The filled trays can be said to constitute a magazine or buffer which takes up the surplus when the speed of the packing machine is less than the normal operating speed and which is relieved of some or all of the stored surplus when the speed of the tipping machine is less than the normal operating speed.
Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,453 discloses a production line wherein the trays are circulated along an endless path by a conveyance which delivers empty trays from tray evacuating apparatus to tray filling apparatus and delivers filled trays from the tray filling apparatus to the tray evacuating apparatus. The filling apparatus receives articles from the path for direct advancement of articles from the maker or makers to the consuming machine or machines, and the evacuating apparatus transfers articles from filled trays into the path for direct advancement of articles to the consuming machine(s). Such mode of operation ensures that the maker or makers need not be arrested when the speed of the consuming machines(s) is less than normal operating speed, and that the consuming machine(s) need not be arrested in immediate response to each reduction of the speed of the maker(s) to less than normal operating speed. The filled trays can be maintained in the state of readiness for evacuation of their contents for relatively short intervals of time or for relatively long intervals (e.g., one or more hours).
The utilization of trays for temporary storage of cigarettes or other rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry is also desirable and advantageous in production lines wherein the maker or makers are designed for the production of relatively small lots of articles of a particular type (e.g., relatively small quantities of selected brands of plain or filter cigarettes) and for rapid conversion for the production of other brands. A drawback of heretofore known proposals is that the conventional means for confining and transporting empty and filled trays in or in combination with such production lines are not entirely satisfactory, e.g., because the moisture content of tobacco in stored rod-shaped articles is greatly reduced after relatively short periods of storage.
Certain types of presently known containers for empty and filled trays serving for temporary storage of rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry are described and shown in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,625 granted on May 22, 1984 to Karl H. Grieven et al. for "Apparatus for transporting trays for cigarettes or the like". Other presently known containers for cigarette trays are disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,564,329 granted Jan. 14, 1986 to Jurgen Bantien for "Apparatus for manipulating empty and filled trays for cigarettes or the like between making and processing machines". Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,106,254 granted Apr. 21, 1992 to Gerhard Tolasch et al. for "Apparatus for filling and emptying trays for rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry" discloses certain presently preferred types of tray filling and tray emptying or evacuating apparatus. The disclosures of all of the aforementioned commonly owned patents are incorporated herein by reference.
A method and an apparatus suitable for the manipulation of containers of the type embodying the present invention are disclosed in commonly owned copending patent application Ser. No. 08/383,084 filed Feb. 2, 1995 by Matthias Horn and Peter Kageler for "Method of and apparatus for manipulating containers for cigarette trays".